Does anyone know why it says “Tournaments Worked” in the Tournament Director tabs in MSA, instead of what it used to say for many years, which was “Tournaments Directed As Chief TD?”
When was this changed?
It was pointed out that it did not really count the number of tournaments as chief TD, so we changed the language rather than spend several hours redoing the queries.
What it appears to count is tournaments where the TD has worked as chief TD, assistant TD, tournament assistant 1 or tournament assistant 2. This does not include the ‘other TD’ field in the tournament header nor does it look at the information in the section headers for an event.
It didn’t appear to increment for tournaments where the TD was not the Chief TD.
Correct, if you were listed in the ‘other TD’ field or only in section headers, it isn’t counting those at all, and the count under ‘sections’ only counts sections, not tournament headers.
We didn’t change the number, we just changed what is says it is, since it wasn’t what it claimed to be.
I believe the TD Experience page accurately counts all events a TD is listed for, in either the tournament header or any section of that event, though it doesn’t give total counts by duties.
Changing that is several hours of billable time, which would need ED approval as well as more precise definitions as to what to count. If someone is only listed in the tournament header but not in any sections, how many sections is that? Is an ‘extra games’ section considered as a separate event or section for advancement purposes? If a TD is only listed as the ‘submitting TD’, what credit does that TD get? Several of those are questions that TDCC might need to help answer and there may be other things that should be counted.
So currently there are no totals being calculated for number of tournaments listed as Chief TD of the tournament?
Actually, there has NEVER been an accurate total posted for number of tournaments as Chief TD.
In your case, Steve, you are currently listed as the chief TD in 3096 events and as the assistant chief TD in 104 events, though in 50 of those you are listed as both the chief TD and the assistant chief TD, for example event ID 200408292400.
If the office and/or TDCC want to redefine what totals we post on MSA, that’s up to them to define, I corrected the wording after it was pointed out by the ratings staff that it was not what it purported to be.
A TD who only submitted an event can count that event as one of the submissions needed for SrTD, ANTD or NTD, but not otherwise. There have been a number of TDs who have done such a submission for others and as long as they list the real chief TD (and don’t try to claim credit for work they did not perform) that is fine.
Extra Games sections would not count as part of a category, D, C, B or A event since they would not be Swiss sections of at least three (for LTD) or four (for all higher) rounds. So they would not count for TD advancement. It has served as a place holder for floor TDs showing that they worked the event without being section chief or section chief assistant of regular sections, thus avoiding distorting their actual TD credits.
As far as what to list goes, it would be a nice-to-have to show total chief, total chief assistant but not chief, total section chief but not overall chief or chief assistant, total section chief assistant but not anything higher and total events worked. It is not a nice-enough-to-have to justify spending any significant amount of money on it since TD/A can provide that summary information for multiple TDs at once for the past year and the detail information for a single TD for the entire MSA-captured career.
Personally I would say that getting the correct player count in TD/A is a higher priority - a player who switches sections/is cross-section paired, or who also played a game in an extra games section, is counted once for each section the player appears in while the correct player count is shown in MSA for the overall event. That difference has sometimes caused TDs to think they have more applicable TD credits than they really have.
2020-2021 TDCC chair
It is challenging to look at an event that has some players in more than one section and decide what happened. I could direct 4 quads and have anywhere from 4 to 16 different players in them.
Not all extra games or cross-section paired games are in sections labeled as ‘extra games’ sections, either.
That’s why, if something is to be done, someone first has to decide what information they really want to see, and define exactly what each category means and how it is tabulated.
I’ve also seen events where it is obvious that not every TD who worked at the event got listed in the crosstables. (There are a few major national events with less than a dozen TDs listed as having worked at an event that drew 1000 or more players.)
We’ve always advised TDs not to count on MSA to document their TD experience credits, but to maintain their own records with letters from the chief TDs where appropriate.
In the days before the Federation took over running them, this 1757 player National Elementary only had six TDs on the floor plus a chief, a pairing chief, a few back room non-TD SwissSys pairers (working under the direction of the back room chief) and some non-TDs manning the scorers’ table that results were reported to. .
That is more than 200 players per TD and it went relatively smoothly but TDs were freed from collecting results slips (fortunately there were no issues that would have needed results slips).
This does still count as one where not every TD was recorded because only the chief and chief assistant are listed on the report.
Look at Super Nationals III (200504109821), which lists only 2 TDs. I guarantee that there were more than that just working in the back room, because I was there, though not working as a TD.
In your case, Steve, you are currently listed as the chief TD in 3096 events (quote from Nolan)
Now this is Amazing!!!
Seems like a gross error which probably should be reviewed.
But reviewed by whom? The chief TD hasn’t been a US Chess member for quite a few years and the back room chief has only directed one event in the last 5 years, so who’d have accurate records of who did what?
:gallic shrug:
I know part of the problem is the limited number of spots you can put TDs in the report. I think you can list at most 3 TDs per section (section chief, section assistant chief, and assistant TD). At the nationals with a lot of TDs you sometimes have to get a little creative in order to make sure everyone is listed somewhere. As a result the true sections worked don’t always match reality exactly.
Ideally there would be additional slots for overall backroom chief, section pairing chief, and additional slots for more assistant TDs. These would only apply to larger events, but it would help make the reports more accurate.
Currently the system supports the following categories, a list that was developed in consultation with TDCC several years ago:
Chief Tournament TD
Assistant Chief Tournament TD
2 Assistant Tournament TDs (with pairing or floor responsibility checkboxes)
Section Chief
Assistant Section Chief
2 Section Assistants (with pairing or floor responsibility checkboxes)
Other TDs (an open-ended list of IDs)
In addition, the system tracks the TD who submitted the event online, who does not necessarily need to be listed in any of the other categories. There’s also a tournament-level and section-level ‘organizer’ field, though it isn’t used for much. (It could be used to put in the ID of the FIDE-certified organizer, though.)
US Chess will be setting up a group to look into capabilities and requirements for the next generation of the tournament reporting/rating systems, that would be an appropriate time to revisit the issue of how to list TD credits, again in conjunction with TDCC.
However, US Chess continues to recommend that TDs looking to advance to higher levels of certification keep their own lists of events they have worked at and their duties at those events, preferably with letters from the chief TDs of major events setting forth their duties at those events.
Ding, ding, ding - we have a winner! +1